peh

Peh is the seventeenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is written in its standard form as פ and in its final form as ף, which is used only at the end of a word. The name peh literally means mouth in Hebrew, and the letter’s earliest forms are descended from a Phoenician symbol representing a mouth.

Phonology and writing. In Hebrew spelling, peh carries two principal pronunciations depending on diacritics. With a dagesh (a dot in the middle) it represents the voiceless bilabial stop /p/, as in words like perekh. Without the dagesh the letter represents /f/, as in pesh. The final form ף is used exclusively at word endings, while the non-final form פ is used elsewhere.

Origin and numeration. Peh derives from the Phoenician letter pe, which in turn comes from a Proto-Semitic root meaning mouth. The character’s shape and name reflect this association. In Hebrew gematria, peh has the numeric value of 80. Its position in the alphabet is after ayin and before tzadi, making it the 17th letter.

Usage. Peh is a common consonant in Modern Hebrew and appears in many words, including those for everyday concepts like mouth (פה, peh) and fruit (פרי, pri). The letter also appears in other languages that use the Hebrew script, such as Yiddish, where its pronunciation typically follows Hebrew phonology. Overall, peh functions as an essential phoneme in the Hebrew system and serves as a straightforward example of a letter with two distinct phonetic values depending on vowel and diacritic context.